Daily fitness and wellness tips

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Yoga is a Hindu spiritual discipline which includes breath control, simple meditation, and the adoption of specific bodily postures. “Yoga” means united, because you are uniting your mind, body, and breathe. Yoga is practiced to improve overall fitness and to reduce stress.

Yoga improves your overall health by relieving tension in the muscles. Your back, neck, and shoulders tend to carry the most tension throughout the day. Through yoga, you will notice improvements in your muscle flexibility. Maybe you couldn’t touch your toes in the beginning; but if you stick with yoga, you will notice a gradual loosening of the muscles.

Yoga also helps perfect your posture. Poor posture can lead to back, neck, and joint problems later in life. As you slump, your body may recompense by flattening the normal inward curves in your neck and lower back which cause pain and degenerative arthritis of the spine.

With its series of postures and controlled-breathing exercises, yoga is a popular stress reliever. The left prefrontal cortex shows a heightened activity in meditators, which correlates with greater levels of happiness. It brings together physical and mental disciplines to achieve a peacefulness of body, helping you relax and manage your stress and anxiety.

As we age many of us begin to gain weight. As adults, if we do not do strength training exercises, we lose muscle mass. Muscle is very dense and takes up less room than fat. Muscle requires fuel, fuel as in calories. Therefore in order to stay lean we need to keep some muscle.

It is recommended to strength train 3-4 times per week. If you are just beginning, start out with light weights. Don’t overdo it to cause injury. The goal is to strengthen slowly.

Check with your doctor to make sure you are physically able to do the exercises. Your doctor should be able to give you guidelines.

Hire a Personal Trainer if it is in your budget. Form more information on Personal Training email me at: jackie@resultswellnesscenters.com or by phone 866-998-4100.

Answer: The weekend represents about 30 percent of the week, so too many slip-ups will put you on bad terms with the scale. Case in point: Dieters usually lose weight during the week, but stop losing weight on the weekend because they ate too much. By feasting on whatever you want on the weekend, you’ll cancel out five days’ worth of healthy eating. When it comes to shedding pounds, consistency is key. Aim to consume a similar number of calories on Tuesday as you would on Saturday. Weigh yourself on Friday and again on Monday. Any weight gain is a sign you shouldn’t have eaten the extra slice of pizza.

Answer: The “fat-burning zone” lies between 50 and 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. When you exercise at this low intensity, your body draws energy from fat. As your heart rate goes up, more energy comes from carbs. So it seems logical that to lose fat you should keep your heart rate low. But that’s not the case.
Doing cardio at higher intensities causes you to burn a lower percentages of fat calories in favor of carbs, but you use more total calories. And that’s the key to slimming down. Plus, since you torch more total calories, the absolute amount of fat burned actually increases too.

Everyone- no matter how healthy you are, should receive an annual physical. Why? A physical examination checks you from head to toe as a preventative care method, and a doctor that gets to know you and your health history as well as your family’s will know what to check for and how to treat you when you go in. So, not only does it keep your body in check, but it keeps your relationship with your doctor up-to-date in case you would ever need to go in for something specific.
Annual physicals prevent a potential disease from spreading as well. If you constantly keep your body in check by a doctor, any potential disease will be caught quicker or prevented all together before things get more serious. Diseases like cancer are silent- so annual blood work is very important.
For women especially it is recommended to see a gynecologist yearly not only to check for any STD’S or problems that could be from partners but to receive a mammogram as well. Many women put off getting a mammogram and this is what doctors stress the most in order to prevent issues such as breast cancer.
“Everyone needs a doctor, even when they are healthy, because a doctor not only manages and cures illness, but also, hopefully, helps prevent illness and promotes wellness. Having a regular relationship with your primary care doctor is important and can be critical in diagnosing potential issues. It is difficult for a doctor you are seeing for the first time to know your history, your body, your normal function and presentation, and your emotions to recognize differences that may indicate problems,” Dr. John Connolly of Castle Connolly Medical Ltd.

Just because the weather is cooler, at least it is here in the North East, doesn’t mean you can skimp on water consumption. To be healthy, you must stay hydrated.

Many experts suggest drinking eight 8 oz glasses per day. Some suggest half your body weight in fluid ounces per day.
Make sure to drink water when exercising. Muscles do not work as well when they are dehydrated. Fuel up with at least 8 ounces before you exercise and sip throughout your workout.
Water is calorie free. If you would like to lose weight, swap soda and other higher calorie drinks for water.
Make water your beverage of choice. It will not only keep you energized, water can help keep your skin looking youthful.